The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR

In a little over two weeks I'll be heading down to Palm Beach, FL to help launch:

The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR

The National Association for Latino Art and Culture (NALAC) in San Antonio started something called the NALAC Fund for the Arts a few years ago. They award modest grants to small organizations and Latino/a artists to carry out various initiatives. For example, recent recipients of this grant include elena minor (on behalf of PALABRA), and Rigoberto González (for travel assistance to attend an artist residency).

Thanks to a couple of private individual donors, the modest grant I landed from NALAC for The Wind Shifts has been more than matched and will allow me to at start The Tour. It's a two-year initiative that will take a different group of poets from the anthology to six cities. The proposed cities and venues are:

2008
The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, FL
The Loft in Minneapolis, MN
Richard Hugo House in Seattle, WA
2009
Poetry Center San José in San Jose, CA
The Guild Complex in Chicago, IL
Poet's House in New York, NY.

All but two of the poets in the anthology are slated to take part. With the exception of the first reading, there will be four different poets at each event. In Florida, we will be joined by special guest Richard Blanco (who's slated to read in Seattle), and the arts writer for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the poet Emma Trelles, who will be covering the event. Emma is also the guest editor of the forthcoming Cuban-American issue of MiPoesías.

This project would not be possible without The Guild Complex in Chicago, who is providing fiscal agency and logistical support. A special thanks, therefore, to Ellen Wadey, their Executive Director. The University of Arizona Press has put up a web page to highlight the 2008 readings. The Society of the Four Arts has announced the inaugural reading here.

The Tour kicks off with Sheryl Luna, whose second collection of poems, 7, was recently accepted by University of Notre Dame Press. She'll be joined by Kevin A. González, whose first book of poems is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press. Rounding out the roster is Eduardo C. Corral, who is widely published and is the current Olive B. Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University.

Please spread the word if you know anyone who lives in or near Palm Beach, or Miami for that matter, which is not that far. And please forward this post and relevant links to places on the web that might seem appropriate.

Thank you, in advance, to AWP (All Willing People, according to RY) who are inclined to lend a hand.

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The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR is supported in part by the Ford Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Southwest Airlines through a grant from the NALAC Fund for the Arts.